A Melody That's Never the Same
by nubianamy
Summary: Young Noah Puckerman doesn't spend his summers cleaning pools. A companion piece to Those Magic Changes My Love Arranges (spoilers for that story). Puck/OMC, eventual Puck/Kurt.


_(Author's note: These are companion scenes to Those Magic Changes My Love Arranges, telling the story from Puck's point of view. Spoilers for that entire story, but you don't have to have read it to understand this one. I'm mostly writing this to help me get back into the head of my Puck and Kurt while writing So Tyrannous and Rough in Proof, the sequel to TMC, for the Puckurt Big Bang. This will be episodic and sporadic. I have no knowledge of the actual Usdan theater camp in Long Island; this is all made up. Warning for underage sexual situations. Enjoy! -amy)_

* * *

The first time Noah had a sex dream about another guy was at theater camp, the summer before seventh grade. He didn't really make a connection between his dad's gay friends at the Dayton Opera House and this kind of dream, which in hindsight was kind of stupid of him. But when Noah woke up with the dream fresh in his mind, sticky and sweaty, he didn't feel _gay_. He just felt turned on.

The guy from his dream was definitely gay, though. Chris was a year older, one of the other up-and-comings at Usdan. He was definitely competition, too, good enough to beat out the upperclassmen for leads. Noah figured the best way to get to know his competition was to intimidate him into dropping out, but after spending one one afternoon attempting to find Chris' weakness, they just ended up snorting Dr. Pepper out of their noses while doing Denis Leary impressions for each other. When Chris flung an arm around Noah's shoulder and drawled, "You're all right, kid," Noah didn't even feel annoyed to be called _kid_, he was so pleased.

In his dream, the arm around the shoulder turned into a scuffle against the cinder block wall in the dressing room, and somehow Chris was shirtless, and the rest was ambiguous enough to appear as a lot of kissing and leg-humping to Noah's memory.

Seeing him at breakfast the next morning was a little embarrassing, but not enough to keep Noah from sitting down next to Chris when he was invited. Chris gave him a curious once-over.

"You're different from most of the guys here, Noah," he told him.

"Nah," said Noah. "I'm just not as douchey."

Chris didn't say anything else about Noah being _different_, but he did invite him to kick around a soccer ball after lunch. Noah got an eyeful of Chris' own physique, his strength and coordination. At one point they paused in the middle of the field, breathing hard. Chris supported himself with his hands on his knees, looking straight at Noah.

"You're really good," he said.

"At a lot of things," Noah panted, grinning. Chris's eyebrows went up, but he didn't reply.

* * *

Usdan was a place his dad had been talking about since Noah was a kid, before the divorce and his dad's stroke. Noah's first theater role with the Dayton Theater Guild had been years ago, when he was only six, and since then had done about two shows a season.

Last summer, after he'd landed a lead in the local summer theater production of _You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, _his dad had come to Lima to see him perform. He came back to their house afterwards, the first time he'd done that in years. His ma hadn't exactly been thrilled to see him. Noah had wondered if the neighbors might call the cops, his parents were screaming so loud at each other.

"You've got to send him to Usdan next summer," his dad insisted. "He deserves better than this small-town stuff. Bryce can make something of him."

"Bryce can kiss my ass," his ma spat. "Noah's not going to waste his time on that _homo shit."_

His dad's mouth tightened at that, but he hugged Noah and Sarah before driving off. "I'm going to get you an audition," he promised, "and you'll get to New York soon."

Noah knew well enough what it meant when his dad promised something, so he didn't count on it. But this time, his dad didn't flake out. He came and picked both of them up one Saturday morning, when his ma was working.

"Where are we going?" Sarah asked, bouncing on the front seat of his truck.

"She needs a booster seat," Noah told him. His dad snorted.

"When I was a kid we didn't even wear seatbelts. She'll be fine."

They drove all morning, stopping only for a bathroom break and a Wendy's frosty, until Noah started seeing road signs for Columbus. His dad gave him a lopsided grin.

"You're not gonna tell your ma about this, okay? I'm not supposed to be driving this much. But Bryce doesn't come out to the midwest too often, and I wasn't about to let you miss this opportunity."

Noah didn't have a monologue prepared or anything, but it was easy enough to run through the plays he'd done and pick out a short scene. He tended to memorize everything he heard more than once, and the entire script of _Death of a Salesman_ was still ingrained in his memory from when he'd played young Bernard at the opera house a few years back. He chose Biff's monologue, but he didn't really think about how it might affect his dad to hear him doing it until he was halfway through and he caught his dad's frozen expression:

"Willy, this is me. You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail. I stole myself out of every good job since high school! And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! That's whose fault it is! I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard‐working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I'm one dollar an hour! I tried seven states and couldn't raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it anymore. I'm just what I am, that's all. Will you let me go, for Christ's sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?"

The director sat making notes after Noah had finished delivering his impassioned speech. He'd used the precise intonation and pacing Felix had used at the Dayton Opera House when he'd played Biff. It felt a little like stealing to do that, to imitate somebody else so exactly, but he figured it wasn't all that different from trying to sing like somebody else. If Felix did it a particular way, he probably had a good reason, and until Noah knew better, he'd do it like him.

"You're Aaron's kid," said the director. Noah nodded, glancing at his dad. "Can you stick around until auditions are over?"

"We'll stay," said Aaron, at the same time Noah said, "My little sister hasn't had any lunch." The director chuckled.

"Come back in an hour and we'll talk then."

His dad couldn't stop jabbering in his slurred voice while Noah and Sarah ate their very non-Kosher cheeseburgers. "You'll have a chance to do two shows a summer. It's the best opportunity on the east coast for young stage actors, Noah."

Noah kept waiting for Sarah to start whining about being bored, but she stayed on her best behavior. Maybe she'd picked up on some of the tension their dad was exhibiting. For whatever reason, she sat quietly in one of the folding auditorium seats while their dad spoke in low tones with Bryce Coleman. Noah didn't know much about him other than that he was the principal director at Usdan.

Bryce called Noah over after a few minutes. His face seemed friendly enough. "You've played small parts in Dayton, Aaron tells me. What was your favorite?"

"_Midsummer Night's Dream,_" Noah said promptly. Bryce's smile widened.

"You like Shakespeare, eh? Just like your dad. We're doing _Twelfth Night_ this summer."

"My dad did that," Noah said. Unbidden, he offered some of Malvolio's most wounded, angry lines from Act V:

"... Tell me, in the modesty of honor,  
Why you have given me such clear lights of favor,  
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,  
To put on yellow stockings and to frown  
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;  
And, acting this in an obedient hope,  
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,  
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,  
And made the most notorious geck and gull  
That e'er invention play'd on?"

Sarah giggled at his expression when he mimicked putting on the yellow stockings, and Bryce and his dad smiled too. "You like the character parts? What about Orsino?"

"Why should I not, had I the heart to do it," said Noah obligingly;  
"Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,  
Kill what I love?-a savage jealousy  
That sometimes savours nobly."

"Remarkable," Bryce murmured. He turned to his dad. "He has plenty to improve on, but I can definitely work with what he's shown here. Fill out the application for financial aid, Aaron, and I'll make sure he gets a spot this summer."

Noah's dad signed the papers without even asking his ma if he could go. "What about Sarah?" he asked while his dad was laboriously writing out his name. "She won't have a sitter if I go away."

"Your Nana can watch her," he said. "You're not going to be home for too much longer. Ruth wanted sole custody; she can figure it out."

So Noah got his full ride scholarship to Usdan, and his ma didn't argue too hard when he pleaded with her to let him go. "I suppose you can't get into nearly as much trouble if you're acting all day," was all she said. She did pay for a round trip Greyhound ticket to get him there and back, though, which was more than she'd given him for both birthday and Hanukkah combined last year. Noah guessed that was her way of being supportive.

* * *

He didn't get into trouble that first summer, unless you counted sex dreams about guys _trouble._ Noah knew better than to mention those to anybody, but he wished he could find a way to talk to Chris about them.

Chris had the role of Eugene in _Brighton Beach. _He was as blonde and Protestant as the day was long, so it wasn't as though the role had been written for him. Noah didn't yet understand enough of how the politics worked at Usdan, or he would have gone to Bryce and petitioned him for the role. Not that Chris wasn't great; he really was. But it was the first time Noah had had the experience of really falling in love with a part. The first time he heard Chris doing Eugene's monologue about masturbation, he was hooked.

"That's a fucking awesome part," Noah commented one afternoon. Chris sighed.

"Yeah, unfortunately I really wanted your part - Orsino, in _Twelfth Night,_" he said. "But Bryce never gives two leads to one performer. Anyway, Antonio's the queer part in that play; of course he'd give it to me."

For the first time all summer, Noah found himself dry-mouthed, fumbling for words. Not once during auditions had Chris mentioned either his wish for the part, or the word _queer_ in relationship to his own. Chris grinned at him.

"Don't tell me you're surprised, Noah," he murmured. "You know I like boys."

Noah found himself swaying in toward Chris a little closer, but pulled away before Chris could do anything else. _Or before I do,_ he thought, hurrying away, feeling the words _you know I like boys_ throbbing in his groin.

He had dreams about Chris all summer long, but he didn't have either the guts or the experience to do anything about them that involved anything more than his own hand. The night of the last dress rehearsal of _Brighton Beach_, however, he and Chris and a couple of the other middle schoolers sat around passing a joint, discussing how things were for them at home.

"My school has shit for drama," said Ian, the short kid from northern Florida. "My mom has to drive me an hour to Jacksonville to meet with my coach every week."

Chris snickered, handing the joint to Noah. "Yeah, I know you're doing those granola bar commercials. Gonna ditch us for the screen?"

"It's not the same," Ian protested. "Commercials are _boring._ I wouldn't give it up for real acting."

"You would if the paycheck was good enough." Chris rolled his green eyes and tossed his blonde bangs out of his face. "You'd sell your fucking soul. You'd do _after school specials."_

Ian put up with the good-natured teasing, but he came back with, "Well, how about you? Would you kiss a _girl?"_

"I've kissed girls on stage," Chris said dismissively. "You don't have to like somebody to do a scene with them. I can be whoever the director needs me to be."

Noah stuck around, waiting for Ian and the other guys to walk away. He finally gathered his courage and asked, casually, "So you'd do a scene with a guy, if you had to? Kiss a guy on stage?"

"Sure, of course." Chris leaned in next to Noah, their shoulders brushing, and looked over at him. "What about you?"

"I've never kissed a guy."

Noah watched his slow, thoughtful smile, feeling a little giddy. "Oh yeah? Looking to lose that particular purity point? I could do something about that."

"There's - people around." Noah glanced over Chris' shoulder. Chris followed his gaze, and chuckled.

"What, Ian? He's been trying to get in my pants all summer. Boy can't take no for an answer. He thinks I'm easy and I'll give him a blowjob just because I'm gay."

The word _blowjob_ hit Noah like an ocean wave; he rocked back, then swayed a little closer, pulled by the undertow. He watched Chris take in his reaction.

"Truth is," Chris murmured, gazing at Noah's mouth, "I only give blowjobs to boys I really like. And then only if they'll give one back."

"I -" Noah paused, swallowed, and tried again, feeling a little dizzy. "You're from Detroit, right?"

"Birmingham," he said, smiling. "Not really Detroit. The suburbs."

"Maybe you could - come down to Lima sometime. To visit."

Noah didn't know what he was asking, exactly, but he could still feel his body's reaction to the idea of a _blowjob,_ of _giving one back_ - which had become a hell of a lot hotter once Chris had suggested it. He wanted to say something like, _you want to give that a try right now?_ There was no way he'd manage that here without having to answer a whole bunch of questions. But maybe, if Chris came to visit...

_No fucking way,_ he told himself what the hell was he thinking, anyway, wanting to have Chris over to the _house,_ in the state it was in?

Chris just smirked, pushing off to his feet. He held out a hand to help Noah up. Noah didn't need the help, but he took the hand anyway. "Come on. I know a place."

It was quiet in costume storage now that all the actors had moved their costumes to the dressing room. Chris tugged him backwards amidst the racks of hanging clothes.

"Close that," he instructed Noah, and Noah kicked the doorstop out of the way and let the door fall shut. Then Chris smiled, stepping in close enough to put his arms around Noah's back. Noah was acutely aware of his erection, pressing between them, but Chris didn't seem to be bothered by it. He closed his eyes as Chris's hand moved down to his ass and squeezed.

"Fuck," he muttered. Chris chuckled.

"Feels good? Wait until you feel it with just skin." His other hand was stroking over Noah's back, leaving tingling traces of sensation in its wake. Eventually it slid behind Noah's neck, pulled his face closer and pressed their lips together.

Noah had kissed plenty of girls, and this didn't feel all that different. Chris' lips were a little rougher than girls' lips, and firmer. Noah didn't actually care much for kissing; the ass-grabbing, though, that was definitely something he wanted Chris to do again. He moved his own hands to brush against Chris' ass, kneading his cheeks and eliciting an appealing moan.

"Back up," Chris said, giving him a little push, until Noah's back was against the door they'd come through. His hands went to Noah's fly, unbuttoning him, and slid his palms into the legs of his jeans. Noah gave a little gasp, because, yeah, bare skin _really_ felt better, and -

The door against which he was leaning shoved him forward, knocking into Chris, who swore under his breath. "Is somebody in there?" they heard a girl's voice ask.

"Just trying something on," Noah called. "Be out in a sec."

They listened for a moment, then Chris grinned at him. "Trying something on, huh?" he whispered. "How'd it feel?"

"Could have been worse," he shrugged.

Chris hit his shoulder in mock offense, laughing silently. Then he took his hand and laid it on top of Noah's erection, cupping it in his palm.

"Feels like you liked it all right," he said. Then he kissed Noah again, placed Noah's hand on Chris' zipper, letting him feel that he was hard, too. "You know I did."

"Yeah?" Noah pressed a little with the heel of his hand, watching Chris' eyes close and his jaw go slack. He did it again, enjoying the reaction. "You saying you might be into doing this again?"

"I'm saying I'm into doing it right now," Chris insisted, rocking forward harder. "Lila's gonna be waiting a long time for me to offer _her_ a blowjob, but I bet I could suck you off in two minutes."

Noah felt an uneasy jolt of uncertainty. "I don't know, man."

"Come on." Chris deftly slipped his hand back into Noah's underwear and gripped him. "You want to get off, don't you? And I know you like it."

He did. He just didn't know how to tell Chris that it felt wrong - the wrong time, the wrong guy - and the further things went the more wrong they were. But his body did the communicating for him, becoming stiff and still under Chris's touch. Chris eventually slowed his touches, then stopped.

"Okay," said Chris, sounding a little angry. "Come on, you wanted this. Don't tell me you're going to end up being just another tease."

"Hey, I don't owe you anything," Noah snapped. He jerked the zipper up on his jeans and tucked his t-shirt back in. "You're the one who brought me in here."

Chris stared at him for a long, tense minute. Then he sighed, turning away. "Fine. You weren't worth my time anyway."

It hurt, but Noah was more relieved than anything. He pushed past Chris and back out into the hallway, surprising Lila, who looked him over.

"What'd you try on?" she asked.

He didn't look at her. "Didn't fit right."

But that night Noah dreamed about Chris anyway, and he woke with a sense of missed opportunity. Chris' hands had felt fucking amazing, but in his dream, Chris had used his mouth, something no girl had ever offered to do for him. After the incident in the costume room, though, he figured there was no way he'd get another chance with Chris. He groaned softly to himself, wishing his dreams would fucking figure things out already.


End file.
